Master the Perfect Crust and 255 Amazing Fillings, with Fruits, Nuts, Creams, Custards, Ice Cream, and More; Expert Techniques for Making Fabulous Pies from Scratch is the descriptive subtitle. In Short its Pie Academy!
Pie Academy is a worthy tome which will bring joy to the hearts of all home bakers. Author Ken Haedrich has his delicious focus on a landscape (or is that kitchen-scape?) of those great American sweet pies.
Food is, for many of us, an important element of travel and trips around the world, including the US. Those American vacations will likely have been punctuated by pies at almost every meal, and for snacks in between. Those crusts are filled with fruit of every kind, nuts, cream, custards, ice cream and meringue.
Novice and experienced bakers are served well by Pie Academy. One will learn how to bake a pie from scratch, with recipes for both crusts and fillings to suit every taste and every occasion. There are confidence-giving step-by-step photos and there are 255 recipes. It truly is a compendium of pie baking.
Dessert pies
We in the UK are famed for our savoury pies but this is the first time I have reviewed a book containing such a large collection of dessert pies, for which the US is so celebrated. The recipes use cup measurements, which might be unfamiliar to some Europeans, but they work. All the ingredients can be found in one’s local supermarket or online. A few might sound strange, but for instance heavy cream is double cream, etc.
This is a bedtime-reading cookbook. It’s one of those volumes over which to linger, salivate and plan. I have narrowed down a dozen or so must-try pies. That list includes such gems as Creamy Maple-Yogurt Pie, Canadian Butter Tarts, and North Carolina Sweet Potato Pie. But with 255 pies to choose from I will probably find dozens more that will work as weekday treats or dinner party finales.
Pie Academy would make a perfect gift for any keen baker. It’s a polished book with practical technical advice and with images which will tempt and inspire.
Pie Academy
Author: Ken Haedrich
Published by: Storey Publishing
Price: £26.99
ISBN-13: 978-1635861112